Colombian bishops seek peace in troubled indigenous areas

Catholic bishops in south-western Colombia have urged the government not to target indigenous people, those of African origin and those having Spanish and indigenous descent who are undertaking in peaceful protests.

"It is necessary that the authorities, organizers and participants ensure that the demonstrations are peaceful, preventing some from distorting what others want to build,” said Bishop Carlos Cárdenas Toro of Pasto in a video message with other prelates in the region this week.

Since April, Colombia is witnessing nation-wide public demonstrations. 

Originally started against a botched tax overhaul, the protests have become a movement against the structural inequalities in the South American country.

Predominantly black and indigenous groups in south-western Colombia are staging the stir under the banner of an indigenous coalition known as minga Indígena. 

The government of President Iván Duque continues to deploy heavily armed military police to quell the local people’s resistance.

The legitimacy of the protest is compromised when violence becomes the protagonist, 54-year-old Bishop Cárdenas Toro added in the video message.

Multicultural city Cali in south-western Colombia has become epicenter of protests by the Afro-Colombian and indigenous groups against whey they call Duque’s “death politics,” a term for systemic violence against marginalized communities and Blacks, indigenous activists and the mestizos, people of mixed race with Spanish and indigenous descent.

The strategic Cauca region is another hotbed for protests by the indigenous people. 

In Cali,the third-largest city in the country, protesters had toppled a statue of a Spanish colonizer, Sebastián de Belalcázar, to protest against their exclusion from the nation-building process.

On May 9, they toppled another statue of a Spanish conquistador, and disfigured the headquarters of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca.

In an interview, Duque termed protesters as violent, irrational and aiming to benefit from inciting violence and chaos.

Bishop Cárdenas Toro pointed out that the right to protest guaranteed under the Constitution must be exercised with full responsibility based on “honest values” and the “common good.”

"The time has come for significant changes in Colombia and we must make these changes through reconciliation", Bishop Juan Carlos Barreto Barreto of Quibdó, said in the message. 

He welcomed the presence of young people in the streets, and noted that Colombia is the most unequal of countries in the world, with high level of poverty.

"… Let's build change in the country through social justice and reconciliation,” Bishop Barreto said.

While Bishop José Roberto Ospina Leóngomez of Buga encouraged the youth to "be creative, dream of a just country, in peace, in which you have job opportunities”, Bishop Jose Saul Grisales Grisales of Ipiales spoke about the importance of serving farmers’ interest in the region and to save them from falling victims to exploitation.

COVID-19 concerns 

In the video message, the bishops also expressed concern about the high percentage of COVID-19 infections in the country. 

Colombia recorded 100,000 COVID-19 deaths June 21. Nearly 40,000 lives have been lost since mid-March, posting 40 percent of the total death toll in the country. 

"We have discovered that cases are becoming more frequent and prevention and assistance activities are scarce,” Bishop Barreto said.

All parish churches in the Diocese of Quibdó which Bishop Barreto heads were closed from June 21 to July 4 as part of health preventive measures. 

Priests were banned from holding meetings in the city of Quibdó and funeral celebrations were held only in the Cathedral of San Francisco de Asís. 

Pope Francis, others urge peace 

The ongoing nation-wide protest in the country of 50 million resulted in violent acts on June 15 at the Brigade of the National Army in the city of Cucuta.

A car bomb explosion in the compound of a military base in eastern Colombia injured 36 seriously, forcing the bishops’ conference to criticize the terrorist act. 

In a press release, the bishops urged Catholics, who make up 70 percent of population, "to continue to pray so that all violence between us ceases and that the united Colombian people can overcome evil with the force of good". 

Despite the death of 50 people, talks between the government and the National Strike Committee to end the deadlock is far from over. 

Monsignor Hector Fabio Henao Gaviria, director of the National Secretariat for Social Pastoral, who stands guarantor on behalf of the Catholic Church in the talks, stressed on taking into confidence all groups in the society, including terrorists.

“…the voices of those who suffer the consequences of a very high unemployment rate and lack of opportunities; as such, we must collect the voices of the territories,” Monsignor Henao Gaviria said.

A meeting in May in which Monsignor Henao Gaviria  and Carlos Ruiz Massieu, UN representative, participated had urged the government to facilitate a visit to Colombia by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR).

There have been at least 113 cases of gender-based violence during the protests, reported by the Office of the Ombudsman, a state-funded agency.

The IACHR arrived in Colombia June 6 to assess the situation after the social unrest in April 28. 

The Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (REPAM) has expressed its closeness and solidarity with the citizens’ protests in Colombia.

“We believe that in Colombia, as in other countries in the region, democracy is in danger and its future is at stake,” Cardinal Pedro Barreto, president of REPAM,said in a statement in the beginning of June.

“Democracy is built on the basis of dialogue and is weakened when dialogue does not work,” the Peruvian cardinal insisted. 

Pope Francis, who visited Latin American nation in 2017 at the start of a peace deal between the government and rebels, expressed his concern for the second time in a month on Pentecost Sunday May 23.

 “I pray that the beloved Colombian people may receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit”, he said at the end of the Regina Coeli in St Peter’s Square.

Despite the peace deal with former FARC guerrilla group members, the military in Colombia continues to battle the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels, crime gangs and former FARC members.

The ELN is reported to be armed with more than 2,500 combatants to fight against government since its founding by extremist Catholic priests in 1964, Reuters reported June 17.

 A car bomb attack in 2019 by ELN, killing 22 people at Bogota's police academy put an end to the nascent peace talks between the ELN and the government.